This invention relates in general to fire escape systems for use in connection with multi-floor structures such as high rise buildings and the like, and in particular to a rescue system including one or more upright guide rails fixedly mounted on a front wall of a building in the range of escape windows of the building to guide a rescue cage which by means of guides and transmission mounts is movably mounted on the guide rail to move up and down to the level of the escape windows on respective floors.
The rescue systems of this type has the advantage in providing relatively inexpensive and durable means for a comfortable and reliable rescue of persons from a burning high rise building where the application of normally available fire ladders is impossible or impractical. An additional advantage of this system is in the fact that it enables the firemen to enter without obstacles in the interior of the burning building and to evacuate the persons even from the highest floors.
A rescue device of this kind is known, for example, from the German Pat. No. 67,409 disclosing two pipes secured at a distance from one another to an outer wall of the building. Inside each pipe is guided via rollers, a looped cable connected to pistons movable in the respective pipes. Each piston is connected through a longitudinal slot in the pipe to a rescue gondola. The gondola pertaining to one pipe is moved in an opposite direction with respect to the gondola guided in the other pipe, i.e. the gondola occupied by the rescued persons slides downwardly and is controlled by means of a breaking device whereas the second empty gondola is moving upwardly.
A reliable rescue operation on all floors of the burning building, however, is impossible by means of this prior art device.
In another rescue device described in German Pat. No. 163,588 the above disadvantage is avoided in the provision of a rescue cage which is guided on rails secured to a building and is suspended on a hoist or a pulley drive by means of which it is moved in vertical direction. The hoist, however, has the disadvantage that its cables are exposed to flames from the burning building and consequently the whole rescue equipment is in danger to become unusable.
From the German published patent application No. 2,628,041 it is also known how to arrange a rope or cable hoist at a front wall of the building in such a manner that the rescue cage during its descent is pulled by means of a load cable away from the building wall. Even this arrangement is unsuitable for use at high rise buildings inasmuch as the lower deverting point for the load cable would have to be arranged at an excessively large distance from the building. At narrow building sites such as, for example, in New York City there is not sufficient room for a device of this type.
Another prior art device for rescuing endangered persons from a building in the case if fire is described in the German published patent application No. 2,447,030 and teaches a building with a balcony on each floor provided on its lateral side with a rescue gondola which in the case of a fire is swung via linking elements against the wall of the building and by means of its arresting claw is brought into engagement with a guide rail secured to the wall. The arresting claw acts as a brake of the gondola during its downward movement by gravity.
The disadvantage of this system is the fact that the rescue gondola cannot be used twice and consequently any person which may be left behind on the floor from which the rescue gondola has been removed can no longer be rescued. Another disadvantage of this prior art device is to be seen also in the fact that it is impossible to employ several rescue gondolas simultaneously because they will interfere with one another and in the lower range of the building they would keep one upon the other and from the uppermost gondola the rescued persons could step out only with difficulty.
In addition, it is also known to employ mobile, telescopically extendable ladders and also ladder systems fixedly mounted to the front wall of the building. Such ladders, however, are applicable to a limited height only, approximately to the maximum height of about 30 meters.
External elevators separated from the housing or the so-called escape towers have been also devised but they are very expensive, require a relatively large space and from the architectural point of view are very disadvantageous.